How Can We Make American Healthcare Work Better for the Disabled Population?

Stephanie, a 47-year-old woman, suffers from hemiplegic migraine, a rare migraine sub-type which creates symptoms similar to a stroke. Because attacks limit her ability to move the right side of her body, Stephanie voluntarily gave up driving out of fear of losing control and causing an accident. This created a new problem, however — how to get to and from her frequent doctor and therapy appointments.

Thousands of other people with disabilities like Stephanie face barriers to the healthcare they need to manage their conditions and enjoy a decent quality of life. Some of these barriers stem from lack of access to transportation, while others stem from financial considerations such as the high cost of health insurance and prescription medications.

Lack of healthcare access not only takes a toll in terms of human suffering, but also creates a higher economic price. Lack of access to preventative care leads to the worsening of symptoms among the disabled population. As a society, we must address the difficult issue of lack of healthcare access among disabled populations in America.

Factors Impacting Healthcare Access

Many of the factors impacting healthcare access stem from physical barriers. While the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) requires hospitals to provide handicapped-accessible equipment, many emergency centers still lack these devices, especially in rural areas. In addition, few private physicians can afford to supply their practices with this equipment.

Many mammogram machines, for example, do not adjust nearly enough to accommodate women in wheelchairs, leading many disabled women to skip this important health screening. In addition, getting from wheelchair to gynecological bed replete with stirrups poses an additional hurdle, causing many disabled women to miss out on an annual pap smear, an otherwise simple cervical cancer screening.

Transportation poses an additional hurdle to many. People with visual impairments report the greatest difficulty in obtaining care. While those living in major metro areas may have easy access to public transportation, rural areas boast few such amenities. In addition, medical centers in rural areas remain few and far between, causing many disabled individuals to have to find someone with an extra hour or more in their day just to run them to the doctor.

Financial factors also impact access to healthcare for disabled individuals. Notably, the Trump administration along with Republicans in Congress recently repealed the individual mandate provision of the Affordable Care Act, which means healthy individuals no longer face a tax penalty for failing to carry health insurance.

This drives the cost up tremendously for people who are self-employed and purchase their health insurance through the marketplace. It pushes the price out of reach for disabled individuals who need care the most, but may be self-employed and working from home due to physical constraints that bar them from pursuing other work.

Healing the System

Making access to healthcare for the disabled population easier involves somewhat of an overhaul of the current US healthcare system. Yet, some simple changes could bring more relief to people in need.

For example, health insurance companies can expand access to alternative therapies such as massage therapy, water therapy and chiropractic care. Research suggests providing alternative therapies may work as effectively or even more effectively than the traditional pill-only treatment protocols we mostly rely on now. Indeed, investing in alternative therapies may prove more cost-effective in the long term than a pricey pill habit in many instances.

Doctors and other health professionals often lack specialized training in dealing with disabled patients. All healthcare professionals should undergo regular training on techniques to make care more inclusive for those with disabilities. Additionally, all healthcare office renovations should take place with accessibility to all at the forefront.

To further bolster communication with disabled patients, healthcare practitioners should provide educational materials in Braille for their visually-impaired patients. Those with patients who are hard of hearing do well to have a sign language interpreter on call to ensure understanding of important matters such as how often to take prescribed medication.

On a national level, because young people with disabilities in particular often lack health insurance coverage, lawmakers in Washington should work to increase, not decrease, access to health insurance for all. Providing an affordable public option not only would save lives, it would also save money in the long run.

Currently individuals lacking health insurance often put off necessary trips to the doctor for preventative care, and by the time they become eligible for Medicare at age 65, their conditions have worsened in severity to the point where more expensive interventions become necessary. If you believe our corrupt healthcare system isn’t carefully designed this way, I’d urge you to think again.

Individuals concerned with expanding health insurance access to all people can also contact their elected officials and urge them to support the Expanded and Improved Medicare-for-All Act. In addition to ensuring all Americans possess healthcare coverage, this legislation would enable lawmakers to negotiate for far lower prices for pharmaceuticals the way other developed nations do and would also cover vision and dental care excluded by many private health insurance plans.

Changes at Home and in the Community

While sweeping changes to our current healthcare system will take time to implement, those who know and love someone with a disability can help them access care.

Individual employers can expand paid family leave policies to allow more time for employees to take loved ones with disabilities to medical appointments. In addition, employers can implement policies such as telecommuting opportunities, which allow individuals with disabilities that prevent them from driving the ability to earn a living.

Those who care for someone with a disability can act as advocates during medical appointments. They can assist those with disabilities in understanding their physician’s instructions and request accommodations during medical exams intended to increase patient comfort. They can also set reminders for their loved ones to take needed medications at the correct time.

Solving the difficult problem of increasing healthcare access for all, including those living with disabilities, will take time and considerable change. However, if we are to truly consider ourselves a just and equitable society, everyone should have the inalienable right to receive the healthcare they need to live their best lives.

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Kate Harveston is originally from Williamsport, PA and holds a bachelor's degree in English. She enjoys writing about health and social justice issues. When she isn't writing, she can usually be found curled up reading dystopian fiction or hiking and searching for inspiration. If you like her writing, follow her blog, So Well, So Woman.

1 Response

For example, health insurance companies can expand access to alternative therapies such as massage therapy, water therapy and chiropractic care. Research suggests providing alternative therapies may work as effectively or even more effectively than the traditional pill-only treatment protocols we mostly rely on now.

A few points. 1. standard evidence based medicine is not just a matter of popping pills. Especially for chronic and acute injuries to skeletal, muscular or nervous systems, physio therapy is a key part of recovering function and alleviating pain. Of course regular exercise is good for you and also helps keep other conditions like heart disease and diabetes in check. And if you have joint problems its common sense to look for exercises that might be done in the water. Doctors do recommend regular exercise and controlling one’s diet in order to keep a whole bunch of diseases in check and avoid or at least significantly reduce the number of pills one has to take.

2. Physiotherapy is an actual part of evidence based medicine. Chiropractics is pseudo-scientific bunk. Chiropractics should be classified in the same bin as homeopathy and acupuncture: complete and utter bullshit. Public monies should not be spent on this stuff. It is a good thing that insurance doesn’t cover this stuff. People are of course free to waste their money on whatever bullshit alternative medicines they may care to consume, but the state has no business funding such with tax dollars or requiring insurance companies to cover these as well. Doing that will just drive premiums up. Consider that if they were more cost effective than standard evidence based medicine, insurance companies would want to cover them instead.Report

It's funny how browsers I think are a thing (specifically Vivaldi and Brave) don't even register on this list. Goes to show my techie bubble.

Browsers used to have better names. Netscape was brilliant. What the heck is a Firefox? (It's "Firebird" with IP considerations is what it is.) Chrome? Edge? Edge? Come on.

It's amazing how quickly Chrome accomplished what Firefox never did. It just goes to show the power of corporate muscle. When Google announced they were creating a browser I thought it was kind of dumb. I was wrong.

People say Firefox is better than Chrome now but I just can't get into the groove of it. Chrome doesn't work right on one of my computers and I use Firefox on it. it's passable, but I wish Chrome worked on it.

With Internet Explorer being replaced by Edge and Edge being Chrome-based, that means may be looking at 3 of the top 5 and 85% of desktop browsing occurring through Chromium browsers. That's concerning.

The ship's presence, he speculated, might have been related to the testing of a nuclear-powered cruise missile.

Did Trump tweet anything about this, you ask?

The United States is learning much from the failed missile explosion in Russia. We have similar, though more advanced, technology. The Russian “Skyfall” explosion has people worried about the air around the facility, and far beyond. Not good!

As some of you know, I lost my father two weeks ago. My mother called me that Friday afternoon and said, in not such direct words, that “you better try to get up here if you can.”

I did, but I was too late. But in the aftermath of it, it was good to be there. My mother and I ate together for two weeks (my brother and his family are coming in later, such are the vagaries of scheduling bereavement leave in a government agency). We cooked some favorite things. My mom roasted a chicken and then laughed ruefully and said “I guess it’ll be harder to use a whole one up now” and the day after that, we made a favorite chicken enchilada recipe given us by a former minister of her church who had lived in the Southwest. And she baked a favorite cake of ours (my father was diabetic and we had to be careful about sweets in the house, and also baking was hard while he was so unwell). I think it helped, maybe?

There’s a German word, Kummerspeck, which literally means “Grief-bacon” and is used to refer to the weight you put on while grieving. I had scoffed at that before because the more minor griefs (eg., breakups) I had suffered made me NOT want to eat…..but I know I’ve put on a couple pounds in the last two weeks and will have to explain to my doctor when I go in for my checkup on Tuesday….

And people brought in food – lasagna, and bread, and other things.

And we went out to eat lunch a couple times; before my father’s health failed so much going out to restaurants was a favorite thing and my mom hadn’t been able to do it, really, for six months or more while he was needing her care.

When I spoke to her today after I got home, she noted that even though she had told the ‘church ladies’ who do bereavement lunches she didn’t want them to go to the trouble for the memorial service this fall (we have some people with some specific dietary concerns coming), someone did call her back and suggest a dessert-and-coffee reception before the service and I urged her to have them do that – I have fixed things many times for funeral lunches at my own church and it feels very much like it’s one kindness I can do for the family, and having a piece of cake or a few cookies may make small talk easier in a time when it’s going to be hard.

I admit I always rolled my eyes over the “how to relate to your weird dumb relative who isn’t like you” pieces, or, worse, the “you should refuse to spend time with them or try to harangue them into your viewpoint over the Thanksgiving table” pieces, because my family has a lot of….different…..people in it, and we’ve always managed. You talk about other stuff, that’s all. You talk about how a favorite team is doing or the funny things someone’s kids are doing or you share memories….

Jeffrey Epstein, the millionaire financier and accused sex trafficker, is dead by suicide, according to three officials familiar with the matter.

The officials told NBC News he was found at 7:30 a.m. ET at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York and that he hanged himself.

Epstein accuser claims she was ordered to have sex with prominent men

He was transported Saturday morning from the Metropolitan Correctional Center to a hospital in Lower Manhattan. Upon arrival, he was in cardiac arrest, people familiar with the matter say.

Epstein, 66, was being held on federal sex trafficking charges.

He was arrested July 6 in Teterboro, New Jersey, as he returned from Paris on a private jet.

He had pleaded not guilty and was denied bail.

The indictment on his case showed that he sought out minors, some as young as 14, from at least 2002 through 2005 and paying them hundreds of dollars in cash for sex at either his Manhattan townhouse or his estate in Palm Beach, Florida, federal prosecutors revealed last month.

Epstein was charged with one count of sex trafficking conspiracy and one count of sex trafficking. He faced up to 45 years in prison if found guilty.